


The Voices of Small Bears

by voleuse



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-23 02:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17072048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: Make no mistake, a family was here.





	The Voices of Small Bears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eirenne Saijima (ladypoetess)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladypoetess/gifts).



> No spoilers, but set sometime before _The Brightest Fell_.

i. _let’s begin with a house_  
When Quentin returned to his room, he found Raj hanging upside-down from the bed, scrolling through his phone. “Why do you have flashcards stored on your phone?” Raj asked.

Quentin rolled his eyes, snatching the phone back from Raj and flipping through a couple of cards, out of habit. “People use flashcards all the time to study,” Quentin replied, and considered a dig at Raj’s sporadic understanding of high schools, but decided it wasn’t worth it.

Raj flipped into a handstand. “Most people don’t have pronunciation guides for all of Oberon’s children.” He did a quick splits before righting himself.

“Show-off,” Quentin noted, then flopped onto the bed. “It’s for diplomatic reasons,” he explained. “Some bloodlines are really touchy about recitation of the proper accord. I’ve seen duels result from a Quebecois accent.”

Raj snorted. “Diplomacy.” He pounced on the bed and stole Quentin’s phone back. 

“Not everyone can flounce onto the Shadow Roads at the first sign of protocol,” Quentin responded. Raj hummed, which signaled the end of this particular line of banter. “Bioshock?” he suggested.

“Well,” Raj said, “you might want to respond to these texts from Dean first, because--”

But Quentin interrupted Raj with a tackle and a yelp, so Raj only managed to send two texts to Dean before his inevitable defeat.

 

ii. _songs of birds long fled_  
Every three weeks, May took control of the upstairs bathroom. Quentin tried protesting once, early on, but May tried a bit of night-haunt on him, and he never complained again.

Jazz returned from work with her tote bag loaded with boxes of hair dye. May was just waking for the afternoon, which felt unbearably early for her, but Jazz had been awake for hours already, and love is about compromise.

May draped her arms around Jazz’s hips and placed three sleepy kisses across her shoulder. “What say you?” she asked, peering into the tote bag.

“They had a teal I thought you would like,” Jazz replied. “And then a royal purple, and I thought maybe an orange streak for contrast.” She set the boxes on the edge of the sink while May shed her U of T sweatshirt, shivering for a second before she acclimated to wearing just a tank top. (And maybe a couple of kisses to warm up, too, but their bathroom treaty with Quentin, after much negotiation, mandated that the common bathroom was a PDA-light zone.)

May sat on the bathroom floor. Leapt up and threw two towels onto the floor, then settled down again. Jazz leaned over her, fiddling with the bathtub faucet before the hot water sluiced over May’s hair. May’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment, and when she opened them, Jazz was watching her, a smile at the corner of her mouth. “What?” May said, the weight of her hair tipping her chin up.

“Naiad,” Jazz murmured, and bathroom treaty be damned, May pulled her down for a kiss.

 

iii. _the earth we lost and nothing else_  
When Sylvester knocked on the door, there was a long moment before the door swung open. Behind it, a young woman, brown braids wrapped in electrical tape, and feet unshod beneath denim overalls. “Well,” the young woman said. 

Sylvester blinked. “Have we--” He shook his head. “Is October here?”

The young woman laughed. “The knight errant has gone to do something only knights errant find not ridiculous.” She stepped back, seeming to invite Sylvester in. “Though she would thank me to find out what her liege’s business in San Francisco might be.” 

Sylvester shifted on his feet, feeling a hint of uncertainty. “Have we met?” he asked, finally crossing the threshold. The rose goblin, Spike, appeared, its spines clacking as it rubbed against Sylvester’s ankles.

The young woman’s voice echoed back from the kitchen. “In song and sonnet, in lore twined with lies.” She re-emerged with a pad of pink paper and pen in hand. “What business do you have with Sir Daye?”

Sylvester picked up Spike, stroking it absent-mindedly. “It will be Etienne’s birthday in a fortnight,” he said. “I thought October might have a sense of appropriate festivities.”

The young woman let her hands drop to her sides. “The Duke of the Shadowed Hills ventured forth into the human world to plan a surprise party?”

“Yes, well,” Sylvester said. “Who are you, again?”

“Am I not passing for one of her many unofficial wards?” The young woman smirked, and something in her bearing changed, or perhaps the depths behind her eyes. 

A chill ran down Sylvester’s spine. “The Luidaeg?” he murmured, almost to himself.

The young woman did not diminish, but it became easier to breathe in a moment. She turned back towards the kitchen. “There’s leftover pizza, if you want to wait.”

 

iv. _the story we promised and may yet deliver_  
Toby woke to an empty but still-warm bed and moonlight filtering in through her window blinds. It wasn’t more than a moment, though, before Tybalt stepped out of the shadows holding a cup of coffee from a cafe downtown, fragrant with cardamom. He settled on the bed beside her and offered the coffee to her with something like a flourish.

“Show-off,” Toby observed, before rising from her recline with a grumble. 

Tybalt chuckled as she took her coffee from him. “One must constantly strive to impress the beloved,” he replied. “Lest one grow too complacent in their presence.”

After a long gulp of coffee, Toby smiled. “Are you saying I should work a little harder?” She set the coffee down on the nightstand. “Am I getting boring?”

Tybalt mock-growled at her, bracing his hands on either side of her hips. “If ‘boring’ means your blood stays within the confines of your veins, I will live ever-thankful for the mundane.”

Toby leaned forward, dipping her head against his throat and daring a kiss. “You are such a geek,” she said.

“One dear to your heart,” Tybalt replied, “even so.” His lips grazed the top of her head, then her temple.

Toby bit her lip as he turned his attention to that sensitive spot behind her ear. “I guess,” she said, sounding only a little breathless, “you could say that.”

“Vixen,” Tybalt pronounced with conviction, and that was the last that was said for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> Title, summary, and headings taken from Philip Levine’s “[A Story](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/story).”


End file.
